


Redress

by FrancesHouseman



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester UST, M/M, Sam Angst, Unrequited Love, but not really, more of a blurb than a story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 12:26:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3728887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrancesHouseman/pseuds/FrancesHouseman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>redress<br/>rɪˈdrɛs/<br/>verb<br/>1.<br/>remedy or set right (an undesirable or unfair situation).</p><p> </p><p>This is not a blurb, it's a <i>vignette</i> :))</p>
            </blockquote>





	Redress

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little thing I wrote for Linden <3

 

 

Sam doesn't have much empathy for the civvies anymore. He digs around for it in his heart while Dean asks the questions but comes up blank. There's been so much death, so much grief over the years, that maybe Sam's empathy reserves are drained. He wonders whether they'll re-fill with time.

  
Dean's act is flawless but it's exactly that: an act. It will be a cold day in Hell before Dean Winchester lets a stranger see his sorrow. For all his bravado however, Dean has long been the golden heart of the operation. He starting saving people because it was the right thing to do, and when Sam was gone, when their dad and Bobby were gone, he kept right on doing it. Dean's a crusader, for sure.

 

Only, Dean puts family first. For Dean, if his family were in one hand and the rest of the world in the other, and if he could only keep hold of one, then he'd let the rest of the world fall right off a cliff. And these days family just means Sam. It wouldn't be an _easy_ thing for Dean to do and the guilt might destroy him but he'd still do it. He might say he wouldn't, might even think it, but Sam knows better.

  
Sam remembers the time, years ago, when the hunt had been thrilling, every new monster sparking a dizzying rush of adrenaline. They had been young, drunk on their own prowess. They had been like wild things; a pack of hungry wolves. These days, not so much.  
  


Dean lies: he says that he's fine; he says that someday they'll rest. These are the lies that bind them together. And they're also bound by truths, perhaps moreso than the lies. They know the depths of cruelty and the truth about evil. They know the truth of the road: that it is endless. But even truths crumble and there are so few truths left them these days. Maybe there is only one truth that matters: The truth of _them,_ whatever that may be. Sam has tried, both idly and in earnest, to define their truth time and again. 

  
Sam has tried to get away from Dean. He still wants to escape a lot of the time. Dean stifles him. They suffocate each other. They're in each other's space, at each other's throats and in each other's heads until Sam wants to scream and run and never look back. He loves Dean too much. He believes that their truth is unchangeable and unbreakable.

 

He wants to make love to Dean, desperately, with every ounce of himself. He wants to make Dean shut his smart-ass mouth for five goddamn minutes but it's relentless and there will be no harbour for Sam Winchester in this lifetime. Some days the space between them is like the Pacific Ocean. How can Sam feel so lonely while his brother sleeps soundly in the next bed?  
  
In the times when they have been parted, when Sam has managed to escape, then Dean was constantly on his mind, the unhealthiest of obsessions. Sam refused to think of Dean and Dean had been waiting for him every night in his dreams.

  
Every day Dean surprises Sam. He would have thought, after a lifetime of living in someone's pocket, that they'd be all out of surprises. In some ways Dean is utterly predictable: his music, his humour, his fondness for whisky. It comforts Sam, even when he doesn't want to be comforted. In other ways, Dean is the proverbial wild-card. There are the little things: a surprise coffee in the morning; a small act of tenderness when Sam's sure he's going to be mocked. Then there are the big things: Sonny's place; the lengths Dean goes to in order to deceive him.

  
Sometimes Sam looks at Dean and even though he knows what his brother sounds like snoring lightly, singing off-key in the shower and jerking off surreptitiously in the dark, he's blind-sided by Dean's beauty. Sunlight will catch on Dean's face in a way that leaves Sam breathless and terrified. Dean can be perfectly still, when he's really listening and not pretending to fidget, and Sam has missed entire witness statements, lost in the ethereal beauty of his brother. The same brother who farts in the bathroom and spits toothpaste in the sink while Sam's shaving, just to piss him off.

 

Sometimes Dean is perfectly cold, the ultimate killer, and even Sam can't see past it. They are both proficient, hardened hunters by necessity, heartless by appearance. Sam tries to imagine how it would be if they both dropped the day-to-day acts of nicety and he shudders at what they've become. It makes him want to take shelter in his brother: the only safety he knows; the only warmth that's left for Sam in this world.

  
Sam has to turn his back on Dean to sleep in the same room. He has to wait until Dean is sleeping, close his eyes and resolutely sync their breathing until he can drift off too.

  
Maybe Dean knows what he does to Sam. There's a lull, a road-stop, a pause between hunts but not a rest. There's a tender smile, another surprise for Sam and he thinks, _Do you know? After all these years, do you know what you do to me? Have you known all along?  
_

Sam feels exposed to Dean, flayed open. He half believes that Dean knows his every thought. Sam's lies feel dumb, transparent, as though he's a small child trying to play an obvious trick. How can Dean not know this about Sam too?  
  


Give Sam the road. Give him his brother and a gun. Give him his brother, a gun and the road and name him the worst kind of sinner because Sam knows where he wants to be.  
  
Sam's sitting and Dean's standing. Dean's wearing a t-shirt because it's too hot for even Dean's layers and Sam fixates on Dean's arms, the soft pale inch of skin between elbow and sleeve. He can't remember why he's not allowed to touch: Dean is his. It's summer and he's Deans and he moves his fingers. It's tragic that this is the way it's going to be: that Sam survived Yellow Eyes, Lucifer and the Trials only to have his mind comprehensively broken by the tiniest patch of freckled skin.

  
Dean stops talking. He looks at Sam and Sam can't read his expression. It's not blank but Dean's not letting him see, not giving Sam anything. Not even the tiniest hint of anything. Sam can't take it anymore. He looks back at Dean, tries to put everything he feels into his eyes, and thinks, fiercely, _I'd die for you. I want to._ It's the bravest thing he's ever done.

  
Dean looks away. Does Dean know? Sam thinks he does.

  
“Go wash up,” Dean says. “We gotta hit the road anyway.”  
  


In a road-stop men's room Sam splashes his face with cold water and studies himself in the mirror. He tries to see the madman inside, tries to find the cracks; the fault lines that spell out his desperation. There's nothing.  
  


He had almost done it. Sam had almost reached out, crossed the waters between them, broken the stalemate and redressed the question of their love. His hands tremble. The hell of it is that if he asked for it then there would be comfort in Dean's arms, and Sam knows it for sure. Dean would let go the rest of the world and hold onto Sam.

 

But Sam can't, not now, not ever. He can't because he's the same way: Sam would slaughter a thousand lambs for Dean, no shame and no second thoughts. Dean is the sun. He's the whole universe and everything worth saving. So Sam won't ask, and if Sam won't ask then Dean won't tell.

 

Sam dries himself off and goes to find his brother. It's a long dusty road ahead. Neither of them will break and they're nowhere close to done.

 

 


End file.
